Digital Culture Banner

                                         DIGITIZED GAMING

Digital gaming comes in three main varieties these days -- computer games (no longer restricted to laptops and desktops), console video games (Nintendo, XBox, Playstation, etc.), and mobile games (handheld consoles, smart phones, and tablets). Games have become a massive worldwide industry, now accounting for greater sales than the film industry. We are long past the time when games were only played by teenage boys. The average age of a gamer these days in mid-30s, and gaming attracts players of every age. Games are immensely pleasurable, come in an almost unlimited variety, ranging from the simplest cell phone-based games to elaborate games that take months to play to games that are works of art. Numerous studies suggest that games can teach a number of valuable skills, a fact often lost in the moral panic around the alleged connection between violent games and real life violence.

A small but very vocal segment of gamers, however, engage in racist, sexist and homophobic behaviors that have given game players a bad rap. The books, articles, and sites presented below offer a variety of perspectives on games and gamer culture, including work on the social issues that keep more folks from being able to fully enjoy digital gaming.

A NOTE TO GAMERS: Based on response forums, some gamers are a sensitive, defensive and vocal lot who love to shout "It's only a game, stupid!" or "Die social justice warrior! Die!" Some also regularly block or troll some of the sites cited on this page. While some celebrates the wonderful aspects of gaming, much of the material below is critical of aspects of games and gamer culture. It should go without saying that there are hundreds of wonderful games and millions of great gamers. But this is not a site dedicated to promoting digital cultures; it is dedicated to improving them. And, strangely enough, in order to improve things you have to point out things that need improvement.

So here's a proposal. Unless you can make an argument that racism, sexism and homophobia are intrinsically necessary in games, how about supporting efforts to open up gaming to people who are currently often unable to enjoy gaming pleasures because they feel more like targets than players? 

Featured Site

                       Never Alone video game scene

  • Never Alone The first Native (Iñupiat) designed and created video game to breakthrough to mainstream success. Will hopefully play a role in lessening Native stereotyping in games. Stunningly beautiful, it also marks an artistic triumph.

Selected General Works on Gaming Culture

  • Bogost, I. How to Do Things With Videogames.. U of Minnesota Press, 2011. Richly imaginative survey of the many things videos games can or could do, offering an analysis that moves beyond simplistic attacks or equally simplistic defenses of the form.
  • ---. Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006.
  • Children Now. Fair Play? Violence, Gender and Race in Video Games. Oakland, CA: Children Now, 2001.
  • Carr, Sax. "A Talk About Inclusive Gaming". Geek and Sundry (2016).
  • Corneliussen, Hilde. and Jill Walker Rettberg. eds. Digital Culture, Play, and Identity: A World of Warcraft® Reader. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008. Excellent collective study of the most popular massively multiplayer online game.
  • Duncombe, Stephen. "Play the Game: Grand Theft Desire." Explores the possibilities and difficulties of 'gamifying' progressive politics.
  • Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Simon , Jonas Heide Smith, and Susana Pajares Tosca. Understanding Video Games NY: Routledge, 2008.
  • Garrelts, Nate. ed. Digital Game Play: Essays on the Nexus of Game and Gamer. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co, 2005.
  • Juul, Jesper. The Casual Revolution: Reinventing Video Games and Their Player. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009.
  • ---. "Games Telling Stories?" Article from Game Studies carefully examining the narrative vs. gameplay approaches to understanding game dynamics.
  • ---. Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005.
  • King, G., and K Tanya.. Tomb Raiders and Space Invaders: Videogame Forms and Contexts. London: I.B. Tauris, 2006
  • Kline, S., Dyer-Witheford, N., & De Peuter, G. Digital Play: The Interaction of Technology, Culture, and Marketing. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003.
  • Mateas, M., & Stern, A. "Interaction and Narrative," In K. Salen & E. Zimmerman, eds. The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology. 642-669. Cambridge: MIT Press. 2006.
  • Pobuda, Tanya. "Assessing Gender and Racial Representation in the Board Game Industry." Careful empirical study with many insights highly relevant to the parallel digital game industry. 2019.
  • Wardrip-Fruin, N., & Harrigan, P. First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game. Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press, 2004.
  • ---. Second Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media. Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press, 2007.
  • ---. Third Person: Authoring and Exploring Vast Narratives. Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press, 2009.
  • Wark, MacKenzie. Gamer Theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2007.
  • Wolf, Mark J.P. and Bernard Perron. eds. The Video Game Theory Reader. NY: Routledge, 2003.
  • -- eds. The Video Game Theory Reader 2. NY: Routledge, 2008.
  • Yee, Nick. The Proteus Paradox: How Online Games and Virtual Worlds Change Us—And How They Don't. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 2015. Superlative study of the complex and often contradictory impacts of digital gaming that richly combines theory and empirical studies.

Gender and Sexuality in Gaming

Featured Sites

Books, Articles, Sites & Videos on Gender, Sex and Gaming

Race/Ethnicity in Gaming

Online Game & Game Studies Resources

Alternative Games/Gamers Sites